Literature Searching

Formulating a Well-Defined, Answerable Research Question

It is important to develop a well-defined, answerable research question because it

  • Defines the focus of your literature search
  • Identifies the appropriate study design and methods
  • Makes searching for evidence simpler and more effective
  • Helps you identify relevant results and separate relevant results from irrelevant ones

Tips for developing a clinical research question:

  • The question is directly relevant to the most important health issue for the patient
  • The question is focused and when answered, will help the patient the most
  • The question is phrased to facilitate a targeted literature search for precise answers

Adopted from CEBM: what makes a good clinical question

Example of a vague question:

"Is mobile technology good at managing diabetes?"

Problems:

  • Mobile technology is very broad. Mobile apps, mobile phones, voice/text? 
  • What does “good” mean? How will you determine if the technology is effective?
  • What kind of diabetes? Type 1? Type 2? Both?
  • Who are the “patients”? Adults? Adolescents? Women? Patients with specific diagnoses?
  • Any time frame?

Example of a well-defined question:

"Are mobile health technology interventions more effective in managing patients with Type 1 or Type 2 diabetes than in-person care?"

PICO Framework

PICO or PICO(T) (patient/problem/population, intervention, comparison, outcome, time) is a well-known approach for framing a research question. It divides the research question into key components making it easy and searchable.

Example: "Are mobile health technology interventions more effective in managing patients with Type 1 or Type 2 diabetes than in-person care?"

Patient/Problem/Population patients with diabetes (Type 1 and Type 2)
Intervention mobile health technology
Comparison in-person care
Outcome effectiveness in managing diabetes

Time (added when there is a time component to the question)

n/a

Other question formulation frameworks:

PIE (Population, Intervention, Effect / Outcome)

SPIDER (Sample, Phenomena of Interest, Design, Evaluation, Research type)

SPICE (Setting, Perspective, Intervention, Comparison, Evaluation)

ECLIPSE (Expectation, Client group, Location, Impact, Professionals, Service)